Devolution and the Trades Union Congress in the North East Region
Devolution and the Trades Union Congress in the
North East region of England and Wales
[12,901]
Draft Paper for the ‘Economic and Social Partners and devolved government’
Session, Regional Studies Association Conference ‘Economic Governance
Post-Devolution: Differentiation or Convergence?’, London, 21 November
2003
Andy Pike, Peter O’Brien and John Tomaney
Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS)
University of Newcastle
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
UK
Tel. +44(0)191 222 8011
Fax. +44 (0)191 232 9259 e-mail: [email protected]
Web: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/curds
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 1 ABSTRACT From a position of relative isolation, trade unions have become increasingly important agents in sub-national and regional development and governance in the UK since the election of the New Labour government in 1997. Comparative analysis of the experience of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the North East of England and Wales suggests that devolution and regionalisation are exerting increasing pressures upon such trade union federations to adopt a multi-level approach to organisation across a range of scales – local, sub-regional, regional, sub-national, national and international – in order to connect with the evolving multi-layered governance structures of the UK political economy. Strategic multi-level organisation suggests the decentralisation of power, authority and resources within the labour movement – challenging the national and centralised legacy of its collective bargaining history – to build the links between engagement in devolved governance and trade union renewal. Our argument is that devolved governance has re- shaped existing and opened up new channels for the engagement of trade union federations, to a degree reproducing many of the central issues of class logics of collective action for labour beyond the employment relation and the workplace into the realm of devolved economic and social governance.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 2 INTRODUCTION
We have union influence in the political sphere — not just at
Westminster, but the devolved administrations too. Devolution and
reforms to deepen democracy may not make newspaper headlines but,
the fact is, Westminster no longer monopolises the political universe.
Slowly but surely a new political culture is emerging in the UK, offering
new opportunities for the TUC and unions to get the voice of working
people heard. The new political culture looks and feels very different …
It provides a different quality of representation, often more open and
accessible; perhaps less burdened by tradition, pomp and ceremony.
While far from perfect, the Scottish Parliament, the Wales Assembly
and — soon, I believe, regional assemblies — are able to reach parts
of the people that ‘London’ has failed to reach” (Brendan Barber, TUC
General Secretary, City University Vice Chancellor’s Lecture, 10 June
2003).
Devolution and regionalisation are beginning to find a place, albeit somewhat limited and tenuous as yet, in trade union strategic development. Emergent views are beginning to see that the cause of trade union renewal may be furthered by ‘looking beyond the factory gates’ to build progressive alliances for economic and social justice with local and regional interests (Wills, 2001).
Newly elected Trades Union Congress (TUC) General Secretary Brendan
Barber’s comments on the future of trade unions are suggestive of the potential for trade unions, trade union federations – such as the TUC – and the broader labour movement of engagement in devolved governance. This
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 3 new found attention to the role of trade union interests in sub-national and regional economic and social development and governance flows from the broader feeling that trade unions have been ‘coming in from the cold’ (CLES
1999; Heselden 2001) at the UK national level following the election of New
Labour’s first administration in 1997.
This renewed relevancy for trade union interests is supported by broadly based international evidence — including The World Bank (Aidt and
Tzannatos 2002) — suggesting that high levels of unionisation can promote rather than inhibit regional and national economic prosperity and the social and territorial equity of growth through positive contributions to skills development, employee involvement and workplace productivity (Dunlop
1994; CEC 1996; Etherington 1997; O'Grady 1997). Although issues of collective interest representation and their inter-relation with the broader labour movement need attention (Pike, O'Brien and Tomaney 2002), trades unions have a central role to play in territorial development and governance in at least four closely related ways. First, by gaining credibility and demonstrating their participation through the delivery of government policy objectives (e.g. learning and skills, workplace social partnership, productivity)
(Manning 2002). Second, by broadening the issues addressed in mainstream debate (e.g. equalities, diversity) and underpinning the balance required between economic, social and environmental priorities characteristic of the
‘New Centrism’ in economic development policy (Geddes and Newman 1999).
Third, by providing the focus for debate around more localised and welfarist alternatives to the “narrow optic of ‘globalisation-competitiveness’” (Lovering
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 4 2001): 352) that currently dominates the territorial development agenda (e.g. alternatives to public-private partnerships, contracting-out) (Foley 2002;
Wainwright 2003). And, fourth, by providing a means for other relatively marginalised actors in local and regional civil society (e.g. the voluntary and community sector) to mobilise around a socially just and broadly progressive agenda. This trade unionism beyond the workplace suggests the need for this to develop into more inclusive ‘soc movements’ rather than narrowly labourist guardians of work place and member interests. For trade union renewal, it is argued that both within and beyond the workplace, trade unions may:
“…achieve the political cachet and social respect - as carriers of the ‘general interest’ - needed to secure supports for their own organisation” (Rogers
1995): 368).
The emergent role for trade union interests in devolved economic and social development and governance beyond — but still crucially relevant to — the employment relation and the workplace raises significant challenges:
…unions in many countries today are faced with new, more divergent,
more specialized and more ‘qualitative’ demands by their members and
clients. This is reflected in growing pressures to participate in
production- and supply-related policy areas which are difficult to
conceive in terms of traditional, labor-market and distribution-centred
trade union ideology (Streeck 1992): 100).
Wolfgang Streeck goes on to argue that when large and encompassing trade union organisations – like federations such as the TUC - are brought into production politics, for example industrial policy: “they usually perform poorly,
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 5 not least reason being that they find it difficult to deal with the internal divisions of interest among their members that immediately emerge on such occasions” (Streeck 1992: 98).
The aim of this paper is therefore twofold. First, to examine how relatively large and encompassing trade union organisations – the respective sub- national and regional TUC’s in Wales and the North East of England – are dealing with devolution and regionalisation in their respective territories.
Second, to explore the extent to which the central issues of class logics of collective action for labour are being reproduced beyond the employment relation and the workplace in the realm of devolved economic and social development and governance. Little research has been undertaken on the
TUC in recent years (Heery 1998), with most work focused on the national level (Taylor 2000). Our analysis builds on Martin, Sunley and Wills’ (1996) notion of ‘institutional spaces’ by incorporating and extending Streeck’s (1992) analysis of class logics of collective action to understand some of the specific and particular tensions facing organised labour in the context of the ‘new institutional space’ opening up at the sub-national and regional levels in the
UK.
Comparative analysis of the experience of the Trades Union Congress in the
North East of England and Wales suggests that devolution and regionalisation are exerting increasing pressures upon trade union federations to adopt a multi-level approach to organisation across a range of scales – local, sub- regional, regional, sub-national, national and international (especially the EU)
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 6 – in order to connect with the evolving multi-layered governance structures of the UK political economy. Strategic multi-level organisation suggests the decentralisation of power, authority and resources within the labour movement
– challenging the national and centralised legacy of its collective bargaining history – to build the links between engagement in devolved governance and trade union renewal. For the Northern TUC, engagement has yielded an inconclusive mix of meaningful contributions alongside somewhat indirect, diffuse influence and areas of continuing marginalisation. The WTUC’s role in the new governance of Wales has been embedded legislatively and through formal agreement with the WAG, new institutions and multiple, supported channels of engagement have been established and a growing degree of substantive influence is being exerted within the fledgeling governance arrangements. Our argument is that the devolved governance arrangements unfolding in the UK have re-shaped existing and opened up new channels for the engagement of trade union federations, to a degree reproducing many of the central issues of class logics of collective action for labour beyond the employment relation and workplace into the realm of devolved economic and social governance.
THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AND SUB-NATIONAL AND REGIONAL
DEVELOPMENT AND GOVERNANCE
The role of trade union interests in sub-national and regional development and governance has received comparatively limited attention. It remains weakly conceptualised, under-theorised, lacking in empirical analysis and under-
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 7 developed in its links to mainstream industrial relations debates about trade union renewal, although recent work has attempted to address such lacunae
(Heselden 2001; O'Brien, Pike and Tomaney Forthcoming). Moreover, the role of trade union federations and their relations with affiliated trade unions have been almost completely ignored despite their relatively large size, representative legitimacy and historically significant position in national and, to a much lesser degree, sub-national and regional corporatist governance arrangements, especially in the UK’s old industrial nations and regions.
Alliances of affiliated trade unions banded together into federations and in league for a common object have particular problems of collective interest representation and mobilisation.
Elsewhere, the recent growth of interest in trade union geographies provides some useful ideas for understanding and explaining the agency of organised labour in trade unions and trade union federations in devolved development and governance. There are several relevant strands in current research. First, building upon the traditions of labour geography (Walker and Storper 1981;
Cooke 1985) and early trade union geography (Massey and Painter 1989), there has been significant growth in work focused on how geography shapes and is shaped by the agency of labour — individually and collectively through social institutions such as trade unions — at the workplace (Wills and
Cumbers 2000), community (Tufts 1998; Wills 2001), local (Herod 1998), regional (O’Brien, Pike and Tomaney Forthcoming; (Sadler and Thompson
2001) and supranational (Wills 1998; Sadler 2000; Herod 2001) levels. A central concern in this work is the ‘scaling’ and ‘rescaling’ of trade union
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 8 strategy, institutions and activity in the context of contemporary economic, social, political and cultural change. For many of these commentators, the articulation and mobilisation of trade union interests beyond the workplace is pivotal to trade union renewal (Wills 2002).
Second, the focus of traditional industrial relations upon the social relations, institutions and politics of the workplace and, often national, concertation arrangements has often neglected their geographical dimensions or reduced them to particular contextual factors. This has been addressed to a degree, particularly in terms of the ‘regionalisation’ and decentralisation of industrial relations systems (Perulli 1993; Teague 1995). A convergence of interests is underpinning a potentially fruitful engagement between industrial relations and economic geography (Ellem and McGrath-Schamp 2002). This project is concerned with the central notion that: “…raising the gaze over the factory gates calls for a theoretical understanding of the roles of space, place and uneven geographical development in the perpetual reconstitution of labour- capital relations” (Herod, Peck and Wills 2002: 2).
Third, recent interest in institutionalist approaches has focused attention on explaining how and why “economic action is socially and institutionally situated…[it] has to be understood as enmeshed in wider structures of social, economic and political rules, procedures and conventions” (Martin 1999): 3).
Critically, while such ensembles of institutions — such as trade unions and their collective federations — “are unlikely to be the sole cause of geographically uneven development they enable, constrain and refract
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 9 economic development in spatially differentiated ways” (Martin 1999: 6). In particular, the distinction between institutional environments (e.g. conventions, norms, rules) and institutional arrangements (e.g. organisational forms) is useful in understanding how institutions - as both formal organisations and as informal ordering structures - in tandem with processes of ‘institution building’ and ‘institutionalisation’ have become central areas of interest in territorial development and governance (Wood and Valler 2001).
Last, work on the ‘new regionalism’ has been influential in assessing the significance or otherwise of the (re)emergence of the region or sub-national entity as an economic, social and political space for individual and collective social agency in the context of debates about ‘globalisation’ and ‘hollowed out’ state forms (Keating 1998; Amin 1999; Lovering 1999). In tandem, the related institutionalist approaches have stimulated work on the socio-institutional infrastructure and context – including trade unions and their federations – at the sub-national and regional levels in which relations and processes of development and governance are embedded in and through multi-layered scales of activity (Goodwin, Jones, Jones, Pett and Simpson 2002).
Central to these ongoing strands of research is the recognition that geography is integral to the historical evolution and development of organised labour and trade unionism across a range of scales. Labourist traditions, industrial relations customs, workplace cultures, degrees of political influence and other facets of labour’s individual and collective agency differ locally and regionally.
They are actively structured through spatialised social relations. They are
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 10 embodied in spatially embedded socio-institutional structures and they often persist over time, imparting a degree of path dependency upon future development. In common with other spatially embedded social institutions, trade unions and trade union federations are centrally important to understanding geographically uneven sub-national and regional development and governance.
Such work provides some useful points of departure to address the conceptualisation, theorisation and empirical analysis of the role of trade union federations in devolved development and governance. In particular,
Martin, Sunley and Wills’ (1996) concept of ‘institutional space’ is helpful in recognising the spatialised frameworks or contexts within which the agency and autonomy of such social institutions is circumscribed. First, it “allows us to visualise [this] nested, multi-layered and multi-scaled system” (16) of
‘institutionalised’ local and regional variations in trade union structures and practices and their inter-relation with national regulatory structures and forces.
Second, the local and regional context of such ‘institutional spaces’ shapes the economic, social and political resources that enable and/or inhibit institutional capacity and action. The engagement of trade union federations in devolved economic and social development and governance is determined by a multitude of internal and external conditions – operating at the local, regional, sub-national, national and supranational scales – which can vary in the level and character of their intensity and influence across space and time.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 11 ‘Institutional spaces’ are said to cohere and change over time in particular places as ‘sub-systems’ or ‘regimes’ (Martin, Sunley and Wills 1996) of trade unionism and industrial relations at the regional and local scale — manifest in institutional structures and practices — that mediate more general level processes of structural change such as devolution and regionalisation:
This is not to imply that local trade unionism and capital/labour relations
can be simply ‘read off’ deterministically from the uneven development
of the economy and society, nor that ‘local repertoires’ of collective
organisation and employer/employee relations are fixed or
mechanistically reproduced over time. Specific outcomes are always in
some sense contingent and uncertain, even sometimes counterintuitive
(Martin, Sunley and Wills, 1996: 16).
This spatial indeterminacy lies at the root of the geography of uneven regional development and governance and requires empirical research.
Devolution and regionalisation processes have opened up the ‘institutional space’ around the governance of economic and social development at the regional and sub-national levels in the UK. Trade unions and trade union federations now have a more pronounced and emergent level at which to act
– and be acted upon – within the multi-layered governance system and a local, regional, sub-national, national and supranational context that will shape the economic, social and political resources at their disposal. The extent to which this emergent regional and/or sub-national institutional space coheres into a cohesive and meaningful ‘sub-system’ or ‘regime’ is contingent upon the particular local and regional context through and within which the generalised
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 12 processes of devolution and regionalisation are mediated. Different outcomes for different organised labour and trade union interests might be expected in different regional and sub-national territories.
While emphasising the emergent potential and indeterminacy of the new
‘institutional space’ opening up for trade unions and their collective federations at the sub-national and regional levels as a result of generalised processes of devolution and regionalisation, a further conceptual development is needed to begin to understand and explain what this means for the collective agency and mobilisation of labour. How can we conceptualise what challenges and issues it presents for organised labour, trade unions and their federations?
Streeck’s (1992) discussion of class logics of collective action, drawing upon
Offe and Wiesenthal’s (Offe and Wiesenthal 1980) class theory of organisational forms, may help to move the analysis forward.
Unlike capital, labour cannot pursue its interests solely through market relations and therefore requires collective action and organisation often through trade unions and their federations. This creates thorny issues as:
“unions are confronted with the task of organizing the entire spectrum of needs that people have when they are employed as wage workers” (Offe and
Wiesenthal 1980: 75). Streeck (1992) developed Offe and Wiesenthal’s
(1980) original typology of characteristics derived from their class theory of interest organisational form to think through the potential tensions and dilemmas of labour’s collective action (Table 1). When expanded beyond the employment relation and the workplace into the realm of an ever widening
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 13 array of policy and institutional issues in the newly devolved context of economic and social development and governance, these issues present a mix of existing and new, often significant challenges of a wholly increased magnitude to trade union interests. Their difficulty and resonance is reinforced in the context of debate about trade union renewal.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 14 Table 1: Ideal Typology of Characteristics of Labour Interest
Organisational Form
Dimension Characteristic Class structural conditions Large group size No alternative modes of collective action Organizational input Broad Heterogeneous Diffuse ‘Contaminated’ Organizational process (‘logic’) Complex Political Discursive ‘Dialogical’ Substantive interest definitions Chosen Positive Qualitative Non-additive Collectivistic Normative
Source: Adapted from Streeck (1992: 81)
Wolfgang Streeck’s framework contains four main dimensions and associated characteristics that shape labour’s potential for collective action and organisation. ‘Class structural conditions’ create the demand for mass representation and action that has limited other modes of expression, for example through the market. ‘Organizational input’ is typically broad, heterogeneous, diffuse and ‘contaminated’ (i.e. not representing ‘pure’ class interests). ‘Organizational process (‘logic’)’ is typically complicated, politicised, perhaps rambling and digressive as well as conversational and interactive.
‘Substantive interest definitions’ may be deliberately chosen rather than given on the basis of value-based positions, often collectivist, and seeking positive,
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 15 progressive and qualitative changes. Marrying this framework with a distinction between internal and external relations and governance provides a means of attempting to make sense of the often bewildering array of interests confronted by trade unions and their collective federations. Internally, these may include national centres, affiliates, officers, rank and file membership, trades councils and specific groups (e.g. organised around interests including disability, ethnicity, gender and sexuality). Externally, the crowded institutional structures of government and governance at the supranational, national, sub- national, regional, sub-regional, local and community scales have unevenly sought trade union participation and contributions at much greater frequency, regularity and deeper levels than hitherto. Managing the articulation and balance between such potentially aligned and/or conflicting internal and external interests is an ongoing process faced by individual trades unions and, at a qualitatively broader and deeper extent, by trade union federations. This adaptation and extension of Streeck’s framework may be instructive in tackling how trade unions and trade union federations may be confronted by and address issues within their new ‘institutional space’ at the sub-national and regional levels in their emergent role with increasing responsibilities for contributing to and participating in devolved economic and social development and governance.
The development of this conceptual framework can underpin the examination of the combinations of general and contingent, particular, dimensions of the engagement of trade union federations in devolved development and governance in the UK. Our empirical analysis examines the experience of two
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 16 particular territorial trade union federations through case studies of the TUC
Northern region (NTUC) in the North East region of England and the Wales
TUC (WTUC) in Wales. The research was undertaken as part of a collaborative project between the authors and the NTUC. The research examined how the two trade union federations were coping with uneven structures and processes of devolution and regionalisation in the UK and sought to draw out both the general and contingent, distinctive character of the processes at work in the North East and Wales. It comprised, first, ongoing analysis of secondary information sources (e.g. strategy and policy documents, press releases) and, second, analysis of over 70 in-depth and semi-structured interviews with relevant key agents (e.g. industrial, national and regional trade union officials, civil servants and local, regional and national politicians) between 1999-2002.
THE NORTH EAST REGION OF ENGLAND AND WALES IN
COMPARATIVE CONTEXT
Alongside the North West, Scotland and the West Midlands, the North East and Wales remain the longstanding ‘heartlands’ of trade unionism in the UK
(Martin, Sunley and Wills, 1996). The long run decline of the traditional industries, punctuated by sharp periods of de-industrialisation in the early
1980s and later 1990s, and the often non-union character of more recent waves of industrialisation have eroded each territory’s employed trade union membership base. However, the North East and Wales remain relatively highly unionised. Nationally, the North East ranks equal first with Wales with
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 17 nearly 40% of all employees in the region being members of a trade union.
The North East and Wales have the second and third highest positions respectively for all public sector employment, and the North East has the highest levels for all private sector employees (Table 2).
Table 2: Trade Union Membership (%)*, Autumn 2001 Region/Nation Public Sector Private Sector All Males Females All public Males Females All private employees sector sector employees employees United 66 56 59 22 14 19 29 Kingdom North East 73 65 68 33 18 27 39 North West 69 60 63 27 17 23 35 Yorkshire and 69 58 62 24 16 21 31 the Humber East Midlands 70 60 63 22 14 18 28 West Midlands 64 58 60 23 16 20 30 East 65 43 50 19 10 15 23 London 60 53 56 15 12 14 25 South East 58 45 50 17 11 14 22 South West 62 49 54 21 12 17 26 England 65 54 57 21 13 18 28 Wales 74 66 69 30 17 24 39 Scotland 69 64 66 25 17 22 35 Northern 74 68 70 29 20 26 40 Ireland
* As a percentage of all employees in each region, excluding the armed forces and those who did not say whether they belonged to a trade union.
Source: Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics (2002)
The North East and Wales are both ‘old industrial regions’ with common economic, social, political and cultural histories marked by Labourism, Labour
Party political domination and tripartite, corporatist institutional governance arrangements between state, capital and labour (Cooke 1985; Shaw 1993;
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 18 Morgan and Mungham 2000; Morgan and Rees 2001; Robinson 2002). As a
‘nation’ within the UK union state, Wales has a unique identity, culture and history as well as distinct institutions and language (Fevre, Chaney, Betts,
Borland and Williams 1999). Wales has been described as a sub-state entity possessing a regionalist nationalist identity (CEC 1996). The North East of
England too has a relatively strong regional identity, shared culture and distinctive history that underpins the strength of its regionalism in the English regional context (Tomaney and Mawson 2002).
The role of organised labour — trade unions and their collective federations — in territorial economy, society and polity has remained strong in the North East and Wales even at the height of antipathy from Conservative administrations.
Such legacies of the past continue to have a substantive bearing upon the trajectories of the two territories. The prolonged depth and intractability of regional industrial decline and relatively accommodative trade union history, punctuated by periods of militancy, have bred a degree of pragmatism and served to mobilise the labour movements in each territory (Austrin and
Beynon 1997). Organised labour have often been largely willing partners in strategies and institutions of territorial economic renewal, particularly through their respective territorial trade union federations, the NTUC and the WTUC.
In Wales, the WTUC were active in the creation of the Welsh Development
Agency in the mid-1970s. In the North East, the NTUC was involved alongside business and the local state in the establishment of one of the first Regional
Development Organisations in England (Northern Development Company) in the mid-1980s.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 19
Despite numerous state-sponsored and market-led attempts at structural change dating back to the 1930s, both the North East and Wales have remained lodged at the sharp end of the deep and entrenched regional disparities that have characterised the UK’s development in the 20 th Century
(Lovering 1999; Robinson 2002) (Table 3). Wales has a relatively lower unemployment record than the North East relative to national levels, although each have deep, intractable pockets of joblessness, some associated with the former coalfield areas, for example Middlesbrough (9.1%) and South Tyneside
(9.1%) in the North East and Anglesey (7.4%) and Blaenau Gwent (7.3%)
(Beatty and Fothergill 2003). In common with other ‘old industrial regions’ in the UK, the diversion of older and less healthy workers from unemployment to sickness-related benefits underpins even higher levels of ‘real unemployment’
(Fothergill 2001) and relatively low employment rates compared to national levels. In terms of wealth and prosperity, the North East has amongst the lowest per capita income earned by businesses and individuals nationally, almost 25% lower than the UK level. Wales is not far ahead at just under 20% lower that the UK level. At just over 10% lower than the national level, gross disposable household income in the North East is level with Northern Ireland and only just higher than Wales. Due to their entrenched economic problems, both the North East and Wales have long been ‘state-managed’ territories
(Hudson 1998) and subject to the volatile history of regional policy in the UK, marked by active and passive periods and steeply declining funding (Taylor
1997), and European Structural Funds, including the recent designation of
Objective One status for West Wales and the Valleys. The territorial economic
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 20 inequalities central to the Government’s rationale for devolution and regionalisation are experienced sharply in the North East and Wales.
Table 3: Unemployment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Household Income by Region and Nation
Regions/Nations Unemployment* GDP*** Household Income**** Level Rate** Per Index Per Index (‘000) Capita (UK = Capita (UK = (£) 100) (£) 100) North East 91 7.6 10,000 77 9,018 89 North West 169 5.1 11,300 87 9,501 94 Yorkshire and the 124 5.0 11,400 88 9,325 92 Humber East Midlands 101 4.7 12,100 94 9,409 93 West Midlands 147 5.6 11,900 92 9,541 94 East 110 3.8 15,100 116 10,638 105 London 260 6.8 16,900 130 12,207 120 South East 144 3.3 15,100 116 11,055 109 South West 90 3.5 11,800 91 10,073 99 Wales 71 5.3 10,400 81 8,870 87 Scotland 168 6.6 12,500 97 9,870 97 Northern Ireland 46 6.1 10,100 78 8,998 89 United Kingdom 1,520 5.1 13,000 100 10,142 100.00
* ILO Unemployment for December 2001 to February 2002; ** Denominator = Totally Economically Active; *** Provisional GDP at basic prices for 1999. UK excludes Extra-Regio and statistical discrepancy. The GDP for Extra-Regio comprises compensation of employees and gross operating surplus which annot be assigned to regions; **** Gross Disposable Household Income (GDHI) for 1999. UK excludes GDHI for Extra-Regio.
Source: Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics
The UK state has been transformed by a programme of devolution since 1997 following the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, a legislative assembly for Northern Ireland (currently suspended), a National Assembly for Wales and a Mayor and Assembly for London (Tomaney and Mawson 2003). The new system of devolved government is characterised by a high degree of
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 21 asymmetry. The powers and structures of the various devolved bodies vary significantly. Unlike in Scotland, the National Assembly for Wales does not possess legislative powers. In effect, it has powers to adapt laws made in the
Westminster parliament. By contrast, while the English regions have seen growing administrative decentralisation, strengthened regional bodies remain accountable to Ministers and Parliament at Westminster. Nevertheless, the creation of Regional Development Agencies in 1999 and the strengthening of
Government Offices for the regions have made the region an important focus for public policy in England. The creation of voluntary Regional Assemblies
(comprising representatives of local authorities and 'stakeholders') has accentuated this development. Within England, regionalism itself is characterised by asymmetry expressed most obviously in the announcement by the UK government that referendums on elected regional assemblies would held in only three regions — the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber and the North West — in 2004. This changing national policy and institutional context has created new opportunities for trade unions and their federations to participate in devolved development and governance. The experience of the
NTUC in the North East region and the WTUC in Wales provides evidence of the extent and nature of such engagement and the strategic issues it presents.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 22 RELUCTANT DECENTRALISATION: THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
OF THE TUC NORTHERN REGION AND THE WALES TUC
Individual unions set the TUC agenda. If unions see devolution as
important then that would feed into the TUC structure and policies.
Unions can re-prioritise the agenda for the TUC in the regions. Current
TUC and union priorities, at a time of resource constraints, sees
political devolution producing only a modest response from the trade
unions because what is devolved [to Wales] is not priority activity for
the unions” (David Jenkins, General Secretary, Wales TUC, Authors’
Interview, 23 April 2001).
Reflecting its historical position within the British political economy and its uneven traditions of national, centralised social democracy, any influence wielded by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has largely been achieved at the national level (Taylor 2000). Indeed, unlike other European peak union bodies, the British TUC has remained heavily dependent upon its affiliated unions, particularly the larger trade unions, for its authority and legitimacy
(Van Ruysseveldt and Visser 1996). As a consequence of this centralist history, the TUC’s regional and sub-national organisation has developed slowly from the 1940s, gathering pace in the 1980s and the1990s.
The origins of official TUC activity in the regions lie in the Second World War when the TUC created 12 Regional Emergency Committees (RECs) to work alongside the Government’s Regional Commissioners within the government’s
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 23 designated defence regions (Martin 1980). Trades councils were already active at the local level. After 1945, the TUC formalised its regional structures with the establishment of Regional Advisory Committees (RACs) under central control, partly to act as a bulwark against the more independent local trade councils (Martin 1980). RACs articulated national TUC policy across a range of industrial issues, and their officials nominated union representatives to sit on government bodies and committees in the regions. RACs received a mixed reception, including trades council suspicion of ‘proxies of the centre’ and affiliate trade unions alarmed at the expansion of TUC influence.
By the early 1970s, the TUC’s regional structure was revamped again in response to local government reorganisation and the establishment of
Economic Planning Regions. The RACs were disbanded and nine new
Regional Councils were set up. In the context of the devolution debates in the
1970s and the nationalist electoral threat to labourist unionism, the national
TUC recognised the Welsh trade union campaign, led by the then powerful
Wales Area of the NUM in alliance with the TGWU, to establish a strengthened and more autonomous collective trade union body in Wales to deal with newly formed business associations (e.g. CBI Wales) and the state in a sub-national mirror of the national level corporatist experiments of the era.
This echoed ongoing demands articulated since the early twentieth century for a Wales-wide organisation to co-ordinate disparate activities in the Welsh labour movement that had previously been scuppered by local parochialism and central hostility from the London-based head offices of individual trade unions and the TUC (Morgan and Mungham 2000). The WTUC was
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 24 established in 1973 in the face of stiff opposition from elements of the TUC centrally. The Scottish TUC was already an independent organisation (Aitken
1997) and the British TUC presence in Scotland is limited to an education and training officer. Yet many of the affiliated unions remained reluctant to support the new decentralised structures. The new regional bodies, particularly in the
English regions, therefore had limited autonomy and were kept on a “tight constitutional leash” (Morgan 1980: 316).
By the end of the 1970s, the infrastructure of voluntary and part-time officers that had served the regions since the 1940s were unable adequately to cope with growing demands at the sub-national and regional levels (TUC 1977). A full-time administrator/researcher was appointed to provide support to the
(then voluntary) General Secretary of the Wales TUC in 1978, and the TUC
General Council also agreed that additional resources were needed to support the work of its two largest regional entities – the North West and South East
Regional Councils. The first full-time Regional Secretary in the TUC was appointed in the Northern region in 1979. This model of full-time Regional
Secretaries and support staff was rolled out to each ‘region’, including Wales, thereafter under the auspices of the TUC’s Development Programme.
However, while joint Regional Education Service and Regional Council Offices were created in the mid-1980s, further regionalisation was constrained by the persistence of the TUC’s national, centralised structures, the unwillingness of traditionally powerful affiliate unions to provide finance and the fear that decentralisation may diminish national trade union power and influence:
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 25 We are all aware that many unions are in all sorts of difficulties with
finance. However, we also know that many regional officials of unions
have written to their headquarters asking for money to help in [regional]
campaigns to lend some dignity to [Regional TUCs] but have been
rebuffed by General Secretaries and Presidents. In fact, many of the
letters I have seen from various unions make Scrooge look like John
Paul Getty (Motion on TUC Regional Councils, moved by J Mills,
TGWU, TUC Congress 1986).
Nevertheless, a regional and sub-national TUC structure has evolved in
Britain (Figure 1). Northern Ireland unions are affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 26 Figure 1: TUC Regions*
Scotland
Northern
Yorkshire and Humberside North West
Midlands Wales
Southern & Eastern
South West
* In the early 1990s, the TUC’s South East and East Anglian Regional Councils merged to create the Southern and Eastern Regional TUC. The West Midlands and the East Midlands Councils merged to form the Midlands TUC.
Source: TUC
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 27 In the English regions, the involvement of TUC Regional Secretaries in the corporatist Regional Economic Planning Councils (REPCs) with local government, the CBI and other regional bodies brought some progress for the emergent regional tier. However, the growing workload and lack of administrative and research capacity hampered the growth of broader union engagement. The early years of administrative devolution in Wales, and the subsequent creation of sub-national economic development institutions, presented new opportunities for the fledgling Wales TUC to be consulted on a wide range of Welsh affairs. However, attempts by the Wales TUC to deliver effective responses to consultative processes were hamstrung at an early stage by insufficient administrative and research support (TUC 1977).
Previous Government funds that had helped in the development of a research facility had ended, leaving the Wales TUC exposed and in danger of being marginalised in the event of future political devolution. The appointment of a
Research and Administration Officer signalled an attempt to overcome this problem, but the capacity of the Wales TUC to engage in public policy debates continued to be limited.
The relative isolation of trade unions in the wilderness years from the mid-
1970s, following the dismantling of the REPCs in England, reduced their involvement to the nomination – rather than election – of (often senior) individuals from both trade unions and the NTUC to sit on the boards and committees of public bodies and assorted ‘quangos’, particularly during the
1980s (e.g. Regional Development Organisations, Training and Enterprise
Councils, Further and Higher Education Institutions, Urban Development
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 28 Corporations). The growth of all-Wales Quangos emerged as a symbol, in part, of Conservative Government efforts to undermine Labour-dominated local authority engagement in the governance of Wales (Morgan and Roberts
1993). Nevertheless, there was tacit recognition that some token trade union involvement in economic development, especially from more ‘moderate’ elements, was a useful contribution given the residual strength of the labour and trade union movement in Wales. Elements of organised labour went along with this incorporation as an opportunity for involvement.
In the hostile national political atmosphere of the 1980s, the ascendant New
Right blamed trade unions for the ‘British Disease’ of national economic under-performance and regarded them as vestiges of the failed corporatist experiments of the early 1970s (Coates 1994). Compounded by its weakness in developing a regionally sensitive and distinctive union contribution to debates on regional policy, the NTUC remained on the fringes of regional decision-making during the 1980s and much of the 1990s, taking its lead from other institutions. In Wales, the experience was somewhat different. The
WTUC retained a role in the WDA’s strategy of attracting mobile investment, promoting social partnership between inward investors and moderate trade unions (Loughlin 1997). The WTUC played a lead role as an referral agency or ‘ambassador’, drawing up and regulating ‘accords’ between individual unions pursuing single-union deals (Wilkinson, Morris and Munday 1993).
This contrasted with the Northern Development Company’s promotion of the
North East as ‘non-union’, replete with ‘greenfield’ sites, and deliberate ignorance of the region’s trade union history.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 29
The national TUC’s regional organisation has evolved, albeit incrementally and perhaps insufficiently, to address the radically changed context of sub- national and regional development and governance. By the late 1990s, there were seven full-time Regional TUC secretaries in England and Wales and the regional offices have been strengthened by the integration of the TUC
Regional Secretariats with the TUC Regional Education and Training Officers and TUC Learning Services. Increased opportunities for participation have posed questions for both the NTUC and WTUC’s capacity and the level and flexibility of their resources. TUC Regional secretariats are nationally funded, mainly to support salaries and office expenses. Additional income is generated through an often relatively modest voluntary levy on unions affiliated to the Regional TUC Council. NTUC and WTUC have achieved considerable success in securing external income (e.g. ESF, DfES, LSC) but this is often ring-fenced for specific, long-term projects. The comparative characteristics of NTUC and WTUC illustrate their differences and similarities
(Table 4).
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 30 Table 4: NTUC and WTUC
NTUC WTUC Established 1974 1974 Legal/Organisational Regional Council General Council Status Structure/organisation Head Office, Newcastle Head Office, Cardiff Upon Tyne Learning Service Office Learning Services in Colwyn Bay, North Offices in Darlington, Wales Workington and Barrow Affiliated trade unions 26 60 Employment 20 16 Core (permanent) 3 6 External (fixed-term) 17 10 Regional (General) Kevin Rowan David Jenkins Secretary
Source: NTUC, WTUC
UNEVEN ENGAGEMENT IN TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT AND
GOVERNANCE
Like other organisations, the trade union movement has to learn to
come to terms with the emerging system of multi-level governance in
post-devolution Britain. This multi-level governance system –
embracing local, regional, national and supranational levels of
government and governance – poses a wholly new set of threats and
opportunities for trade unions (WalesTUC n.d.): 6.1).
The following analysis seeks to examine how the NTUC and WTUC are addressing such questions and to assess the degree to which they are reproducing the central issues of class logics of collective action for labour
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 31 beyond the employment relation and workplace in the realm of devolved economic and social governance.
Inter-institutional structures and relations
Devolved and regionalised governance arrangements have reshaped existing institutions and established new bodies. NTUC and WTUC are now part of a much thicker and deeper web of inter-institutional structures and relations in terms of internal and external governance at the national and sub- national/regional levels within Wales and the North East region (Figures 2 and
3). Organisational inputs to labour’s collective organisation and action have become myriad. Historically, trade union interests were often dominated by a handful of key individuals in powerful affiliate unions, sometimes working with and through the NTUC whereas in Wales the WTUC has enjoyed a relatively more central, proactive and institutionalised role in the distinctive governance of Wales (Morgan 1997).
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 32 Figure 2 : Northern TUC: key institutional re lations
Governance
Internal External
• TUC • HM Treasury • TUC Congress • Office of Deputy Prime Minister • National trade union affiliates • Department for Education and Skills National • Department of Trade and Industry • Department of Work and Pensions
Level
• Government Office North East • Annual Conference • ONE North East (RDA) • Regional Executive • North East Assembly • Sub-national/ Regional Council • Sub-regional LLSCs • Regional trade union affiliates • Northern CBI • Regional Regional Education, Learning and Skills • Northern Business Forum Forum • EEF Northern • Economic Working Group • Voluntary Organisations Network North • Trades Councils East
Source: Authors’ Research (2003)
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 33 Figure 3 : Wales TUC : Key institutional relations
Governance
Internal External
• TUC • Department of Constitutional Affairs • TUC Congress (former Welsh Office) • National trade union affiliates National • Secretary of State for Wales
Level
• Welsh Assembly Government • — First Minister Annual Conference — Cabinet • Wales TUC Executive — Subject divisions/Civil Servants Sub-national/ • — Assembly Committees General Council — Assembly Members • Regional trade union affiliates — Business Partnership Council • Trades Councils — Social Partners Unit Regional • WDA • ELWa • WEFO • Business Wales • Wales Council for Voluntary Action
Source: Authors’ Research (2003)
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 34 Historically, WTUC had a limited degree of engagement in the governance of
Wales relative to business through the Welsh Office — a national territorial
Department of State. Following devolution, the National Assembly for Wales
(renamed the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) in 2002) established a more open system, at least partly due to its commitment to a new style of politics, and became more receptive to economic and social partner involvement, including trade unions, as part of its commitment to the
European social partnership model. Indeed, the Government of Wales Act
1998 made it a statutory obligation for the WAG to consult with key partners in the voluntary sector and business organisations — including trade unions and their federations. In addition, effective dialogue with the Secretary of State for
Wales remains important, particularly for reserved matters decided upon in
Whitehall.
Wales has used the model of ‘structured representative organisations’ through the 3 ‘pillars’ (Business Wales, WTUC and ‘not-for-profit’ companies,, Welsh
Council for Voluntary Action, local government). A Civic Forum has not been established and it is too early to judge whether a balance has been struck between inclusivity and effectiveness. For devolved matters, engagement with the WAG works through three inter—related channels: First, the Business
Partnership Council is one of the 3 ‘pillars’ of the devolved administration’s institutional structure of engagement with economic and social partners, although employer representation has exceeded initial guidelines. It is Chaired by the First Minister and discusses strategic issues and deficiencies in the consultation process. Meetings are public and all documentation is available
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 35 on the website. Partners are also encouraged to engage in dialogue with the
Assembly’s Subject and Regional Committees. Second, formal and informal liaison takes place between the First Minister, Cabinet Ministers and civil servants with trade unions. The WTUC and WAG have agreed a
Memorandum of Understanding to formalise their inter-relationships and joint focus on 5 priorities: economic development, improved levels of education and training, public service modernisation, promotion of equal opportunities and social partnership. This mirrors a similar corporatist-style concordat between the STUC and Scottish Executive. Third, WTUC responds to formal consultation, often through written exercises, for example the recent Action
Plan for Innovation. This has put pressure on the research and policy making capacity of the WTUC. The WAG funds a Social Partner’s Unit, jointly managed by Business Wales and WTUC, to filter Assembly business, identify key issues for social partners and build links into EU funding sources.
Early assessments suggest the arrangements for the WTUC’s engagement with the WAG need time to bed down. For example, the Wales TUC has called for the bolstering of the powers and responsibilities of the WAG in their submission to the Richard Commission. In addition, the Business Partnership
Council has been criticised for being too top down, bureaucratic and unrepresentative. The increased pressure upon research and policy-making capacity has been met by increased linkages with Universities and engagement with the independent, trade union funded think-tank the Bevan
Foundation. Particular success has been achieved around the ‘learning agenda’ with the WAG directly funding TUC Learning Services and TUC
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 36 Education in Wales. In addition, WTUC maintains its links with the grass roots through the Wales Co-operative Centre, that it established in 1982.
In the English regions, devolution and regionalisation has led to the adaptation of existing organisations, including the regional Government Offices (GOs), and created a new lead institution in the Regional Development Agencies
(RDAs) in all the English regions. While a modest institutional innovation with somewhat limited powers and resources relative to their responsibilities
(Robinson 2000), the relevant Act gave trade unions a statutory seat on RDA boards alongside private, public and voluntary sector as well as other interests. Government aspired toward the establishment of more decentralised, plural and inclusive forms of governance — what some term
‘partnership governance’ (Valler, Wood, Atkinson, Betteley, Phelps, Raco and
Shirlow 2003) — at the regional level:
We must work with local partners – the business community, the local
authorities, voluntary agencies, further and higher education, trades
unions, Training and Enterprise Councils, and the local communities
themselves – to deliver our objectives. And we must listen to those
partners and encourage them to come together to give expression to
regional views” (DETR 1997).
The changed legislative and institutional climate meant a sea change in attitudes toward the NTUC and trade unions by regional institutions. NTUC work jointly with the NW TUC and RDA because Cumbria remains part of the
NTUC’s area but is within the NW GO region (see Figure 1). In addition, the
North East RDA (ONE North East) has utilised Sub-Regional Partnerships
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 37 (Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham, Tees Valley) and each has trade union involvement elected through the Regional Council. Principally, the
NTUC continued its involvement in the Regional Industrial Development
Board and Programme Management Committees disbursing national and
European funds through GONE and the RDA. The voluntary Regional
Chambers established alongside the RDAs allowed for trade union participation as economic and social partners alongside business and the voluntary and community sectors, currently involving 5 trade unionists (one as
Vice Chair of the group). This has recently extended to the scrutiny role over the RDA’s activities (NEA 2002), albeit with limited trade union involvement (1 out of 33 panel members). Each of the new sub-regional LSCs have trade union involvement. The myriad of public-private partnerships at the local and sub-regional level, such as SRB and ‘New Deal’ Steering Groups,
Employment Tribunals Groups, ICT Steering Groups, and sub-regional economic development bodies, such as the Tyne and Wear Economic
Development Company (TWEDCO) typically have at least some, often limited, trade union participation both with and without links back into the NTUC.
Broadly, regional trade union and TUC officials tend to be part of the ‘great and the good’ of the corporatist elite and involved in regional and sub-regional bodies while rank and file representatives and members participate in local level partnerships.
Building capacity
Capacity building has been central to the credibility and success of engagement by NTUC and WTUC. Echoing Streeck’s framework, there has
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 38 been a dramatic growth and widening of the already broad, heterogeneous and diffuse organisational inputs that has generated rapidly growing opportunities for participation. Consequently, NTUC and WTUC’s organisational resources have been severely stretched. All too often involvement in the burgeoning meetings, committees and administration of devolved government and governance falls upon the shoulders of a relatively limited number of individuals. While these participants have often had to engage in learning by doing, they risk becoming overloaded and relatively detached from the broader labour movement through the specialised knowledge and networks that they accumulate. Mechanisms to report back and account for the activities of participating trades unionists have been relatively limited and underdeveloped. Moreover, while trade unions strive to move closer to the ideal, in the North East at least, the participating individuals have some way to go to match the diversity of the region they govern
(Robinson and Shaw 2000). The need to broaden and deepen the pool of capable individuals able and willing to participate has become paramount.
Political devolution has challenged the Wales TUC to deliver effective contributions to the governance of regional development in Wales.
“In the past the Wales TUC found it easier to deal with a Secretary of
State and two junior ministers. It was easier to deal with a smaller
organisation than with an administration asking lots of questions and
wanting inputs” (David Jenkins, interview with authors, 23 April 2001).
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 39 Following a decision in the early 1990s not to continue the employment of the
Research and Administration Officer post that had been in existence within the Wales TUC since 1978, the British TUC agreed to a request to fund a part-time Assistant General Secretary and a full-time Research Officer to help strengthen the capacity of the Wales TUC. However, the emergence of a much more developed consultative infrastructure has often threatened to overwhelm the WTUC with requests for participation. Very few trade unions in
Wales possess their own ‘local’ research base, depending instead on support situated in head offices predominantly located in London. This means that the
Wales TUC Research Officer is often the only single resource the entire trade union movement – comprising 60 affiliates in Wales can call upon. While the
Wales TUC is a key stakeholder in the Wales Social Partner Unit and receives valuable support from the Unit the remit of the Unit does not stretch to producing responses of individual social partners. The consequences of greater demands being placed upon the Wales TUC has led it to draw increasingly upon the support of the Bevan Foundation, an independent ‘think- tank established with start-up funding from trade unions and individuals in
2001 to stimulate debate and ideas from within Wales on a range of public policy issues in the post-devolution era.
The NTUC’s strategy has involved securing RDA funding for a dedicated
Regional Policy Officer post, in the absence of achieving central/national funding similar to that provided for WTUC, and involvement through TUC
Education in the development of a capacity building course on Regional
Governance for economic and social partners funded by the North East
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 40 Assembly. In parallel, NTUC has developed a more policy-oriented approach focused upon clear priorities. Learning from the STUC about the need for rapid and transparent decision-making to facilitate engagement (McKay
1999), NTUC has reformed its internal governance to encourage greater participation and enhance its ability to communicate both with its affiliated trade unions and beyond to regional institutions in addition to the legitimate policymaking bodies of the Regional Executive and Council. In Streeck’s terms, such action can be interpreted as an attempt to simplify while maintaining the democratic and legitimate nature of the complex, political, discursive and ‘dialogical’ organisational processes within the NTUC. This has involved the establishment of a media engagement strategy and regional pages on the TUC national website including information on events, learning services and union membership, newsletters and a directory of regional and national labour movement contacts. Other innovations have sought to strengthen trade union research capacity, building on the traditions of independent institutions such the Tyneside-based Trade Union Studies
Information Unit (TUSIU), to make meaningful contributions to regional debates and improve the perception of NTUC as a ‘credible partner’ amongst the main governance institutions. Developments have involved joint projects with universities (e.g. (O'Brien 2001), the establishment of the Economic
Working Group, accountable to the Regional Council, to bring together trade unionists, academics and policymakers to debate and act on local and regional policy and discussions about the building of an academic network similar to the Scottish Trade Union Research Network and London Union
Research Network.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 41
Shaping economic and social strategies
Central to the engagement of NTUC and WTUC has been an attempt to shape the economic and social strategies of the new sub-national and regional institutions across several common areas. WTUC has promoted its agenda for prosperity based upon developing the economy, promoting lifelong learning and improving health and wellbeing (WalesTUC n.d.). Economic development and regeneration focused on a vision of:
…a successful economy is one which is technologically innovative,
ecologically sustainable and socially inclusive, an economy
characterised by high levels of employment, based on fair terms and
conditions for all employees, supported by public services which are
properly funded and effectively managed (Wales TUC n.d.: 1.2).
Underpinning this approach is a commitment to a ‘partnership economy’ in which “social partners jointly seek to address the barriers to innovation and productivity” (Wales TUC n.d.: 3.1). NTUC’s formal response to consultation regarding the RDA’s Regional Economic Strategy emphasised the need to develop a more ‘rounded’ economy with a more appropriate balance between manufacturing and services, traditional and new industries, knowledge- intensive and labour intensive activities and indigenous/externally owned sources of growth. In addition, the response underlined the contribution that trade unions could make to delivery (e.g. cluster development strategies), the need for capacity building support, the necessity of accountability as part of the devolution settlement for the English regions and the critical delivery role of the public and voluntary sectors.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 42
Befitting their position within old industrial regions with historically faltering inward investment records, both TUCs have focused on manufacturing, including developing modernisation strategies, effective intervention and support networks (Pike and O'Brien 2000; WalesTUC 2000). These initiatives dovetailed with a national TUC campaign. The controversies surrounding public service modernisation have also occupied NTUC and WTUC on principle and due to the relatively high levels of public sector employment and trade union membership in the North East and Wales. NTUC has worked alongside UNISON Northern to emphasise the regional dimension and WTUC has sought increased investment in publicly owned services, fair employment clauses in public sector contracts let by the WAG and safeguards on employment transfer.
Last, some areas of difference are evident, reflecting particular concerns within the North East and Wales as well as the differential array of devolved powers and responsibilities within each territory’s governance structures. For example, WTUC’s economic strategy has developed proposals on environmental goods and services, public procurement and infrastructure, particularly rail. Meanwhile NTUC co-ordinated research on labour history and trade unionism as its contribution to the Newcastle-Gateshead’s ‘Capital of
Culture 2008’ bid (O'Brien and Stirling 2001). NTUC and WTUC’s substantive interventions illustrate the contributions that such trade union federations have sought to make to shape strategies for sub-national and regional development and governance.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 43
Delivering the learning and skills and equalities agendas
The traditional core trade union activity of workplace training now occupies a central position in national and regional policy for skills development, productivity and competitiveness (HMTreasury 2001) buoyed by the recent
Skills White paper (DfES 2003). The ‘low skills equilibrium’ is a common problem in the North East and Wales. In particular, poor education levels, lack of basic skills, limited aspirations and perceptions of job prospects by both potential employers and employees has produced a profoundly damaging malaise (Table 5). The persistence of such basic skills deficiencies amidst the rhetoric of the ‘knowledge economy’ is recognised by the WTUC in their analysis of the offshore relocation of low value, price sensitive activities to lower cost regions in Europe and beyond:
The conventional response to this problem from the WDA and the
Assembly is to say that Wales needs to ‘move up market’ into the
‘knowledge-driven economy’. But the big question is how Wales gets
from here to there when one in four of the Welsh population is
functionally illiterate and two in five nonnumerate? (WalesTUC n.d.:
4.1).
Learning and skills have therefore been central trade union interests prosecuted by the NTUC and WTUC.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 44 Table 5: Population of Working Age with No Formal Qualifications, 2000
Region/Nation No. of Working Age % With No (000) Qualifications North East 1,573 20 North West 4,180 17 Yorkshire and the Humber 3,078 17 East Midlands 2,569 18 West Midlands 3,239 20 Eastern 3,301 15 London 4,619 15 South East 4,907 11 South West 2,921 13 England 30,386 16 Wales 1,750 20 Scotland 3,160 18 Northern Ireland 1,017 26
Source: ONS (2000)
The existence of a strong equalities theme within the Government of Wales
Act, and the ability of trade union organisations to raise demand for learning among under-represented sections of society, has helped to shape the growing importance of the Wales TUC within the learning and skills agenda in
Wales. This influence has been illustrated by the decision of the WAG to provide grant assistance of over £1.4 million to cover the costs of Wales TUC
Learning Services up until March 2006 (WalesTUC 2003). The significance of the Wales TUC as a facilitator of learning and skills on behalf of the trade union movement in Wales has proved crucial.
“…one of the differences between Wales and England is that quite
often in England the individual unions have national learning services
type teams or officers and they create bids or projects and pass them
down to the region. Because of devolution it doesn’t always progress
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 45 into Wales because all the funding structures are different. So we tend
to get much lower capacity among the unions to invent projects in
Wales so they tend to do more collaboration with each other and more
in collaboration with the Wales TUC” (Clare Jenkins, Head of Wales
TUC Learning Services Authors’ Interview, May 2001).
NTUC are now a key delivery partner for the RDA’s RES objective to create a skilled, adaptable regional workforce and part of its Framework for Regional
Employment and Skills Action (ONE 2002). In order to respond to these demands, NTUC has established a regional Education, Learning and Skills
Forum, integrating the work of TUC Education and TUC Learning Services, and bringing together trade unionists sitting on the RDA, LSCs and Lifelong
Learning Partnerships, as well as Regional Education Officers and TUC
Education Course providers. In addition, NTUC is working with all four sub- regional LSCs in a ‘Learning for All’ lifelong learning project, using the partnership approach developed in the 1990s (Clough 1997), and supplementing the relatively low uptake compared to London and the North
West from the national Department for Education and Skills’ national Union
Learning Fund (ULF). The Northern TUC is also a key stakeholder alongside
Tyne and Wear LSC in the Government’s Employer Training Pilot, which is testing models that offer employers compensation in return for releasing employees to undertake basic skills training. Reinforcing their role as custodians of the equalities agenda, NTUC has secured European (ESF) funding to support research on barriers to employment and training experienced by women and ethnic minorities that have shaped social
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 46 inclusion strategies in the region (TUC 2001; TUC 2002). Such examples reveal the ability of trade union federations to deliver fundamental elements of government policy and to broaden the terms of debate about the nature of regional economic and social development.
Participating in devolved governance debates
The intertwined legacies of corporatism and labourism have underpinned the residual degree of political influence retained by trade union interests within the North East region and Wales, albeit much reduced in magnitude and changed in character from its heyday of the 1960s and 1970s. Historically, during the 1970s devolution debates, the WTUC and trade unions in Wales were aligned with unionist labourism, closely tied into the Labour Party, against the separatist nationalism of Plaid Cymru. Their strategies were wedded to traditional notions of national, centralised social democracy as a means for equality and progressive politics rather than devolution and potential independence. In the early 1990s, the WTUC had an ambiguous role in the internal Labour Party machinations about devolution, first, displaying active support and passing a resolution to establish a ‘Welsh Constitutional
Convention’ then counselling caution and portraying devolution as a
‘diversion’ from the main project of returning a Labour government to ultimately supporting the Yes Coalition (Morgan and Mungham 2000).
Following devolution, the WTUC have been deeply engaged with the fledgling devolved governance. Indeed, their response to the Richard Commission into the powers and electoral arrangements for the NAW called for pre-legislative
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 47 scrutiny of Westminster bills, extension of the NAW’s remit and powers, development of primary law making powers and devolution of public transport as well as advocating twinning for election candidates and, in something of a throwback to its historical roots, a return to the ‘First Past the Post’ electoral system.
The unfinished business of the political settlement for the English regions has evolved amongst much debate in New Labour’s second term (Tomaney
2002), culminating in the White Paper (CabinetOffice/DTLR 2002). National attention has focused on the North East region due to its relatively high levels of support for regional government, shaped by its distinct regional identity and acute experience of both the economic and democratic deficits that devolved governance seeks to address. Following internal policy debate and decision to support elected regional assemblies in principle, NTUC have been researching the evidence base and leading the debate within the national trade union movement (O'Brien 2001; NorthernTUC 2002). Such activity has underpinned national TUC’s supportive response to the White Paper, emphasising its potential importance in boosting prosperity, strengthening national cohesion and including trade unions as key stakeholders (TUC 2002).
Building upon their history of civic engagement in the region’s Labourist politics, trade unions have been active campaigners in the North East
Constitutional Convention, providing its Chair, and, notwithstanding debates about its substantive impact upon members, trade unions are expected to play a role in the ‘Yes’ coalition in the run up to the referendum in autumn 2004.
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 48
CONCLUSIONS
Devolution is…providing the UK as a whole with very different models
for doing things. It makes it possible for unions to press Government to
try a different way (Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary, City
University Vice Chancellor’s Lecture, 10 June 2003).
Drawing upon the experience of the Northern TUC in the North East region of
England and the Wales TUC in Wales, we have sought to examine how trade union federations are dealing with devolution and regionalisation and to explore the extent to which the central issues of class logics of collective action for labour are being reproduced beyond the employment relation and the workplace in the realm of devolved economic and social development and governance.
There are several main conclusions. First, devolution and regionalisation are generating growing demands upon trade union interests of an often new and qualitatively different nature for involvement and multi-level organisation across and between the local, sub-regional, regional, sub-national, national and international levels in the UK’s devolving, multi-layered governance structure. Strategic relationships are being recast both vertically – between levels – and horizontally – across levels – in the internal and external governance arrangements of trade union federations. A commitment to co-
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 49 ordination and a much clearer division of labour may well be required to cope with the demands of such multi-level governance:
In the field of regional development and regeneration this multi-level
system is already well advanced, with policy-making functions split
between Brussels, London and Cardiff, which means that the trade
union movement will need to devote more time to co-ordinating its
activities — especially as regards who does what at which level (Wales
TUC n.d.: 6.2).
Strategic multi-level organisation and the prioritisation of concerns suggests the need for the decentralisation of power, authority and resources within the labour movement — challenging the national and centralised legacy of its collective bargaining history – to build the links between engagement in devolved development and governance and trade unionism’s core renewal agenda. Indeed, while such engagement is at an early stage and some tangible outcomes are evident, the contribution of Trade Union engagement in devolved governance to trade union renewal offers a potential that is largely yet to be realised. Some interests even consider it a diversion from workplace level activity.
Second, devolved governance arrangements have re-shaped existing and opened up new channels for the engagement of trade union federations but in markedly uneven ways. For the Northern TUC, engagement has yielded an inconclusive mix of meaningful contributions alongside somewhat indirect, diffuse influence and areas of continuing marginalisation. The Wales TUC’s role in the new governance of Wales has been embedded legislatively and
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 50 through formal agreement with the WAG, new institutions and multiple, supported channels of engagement have been established and a degree of substantive influence is being exerted within the fledgling governance arrangements.
Last, within the new institutional space opening up at the sub-national and regional levels the engagement of trade union federations is to a degree reproducing many of the central issues of class logics of collective action for labour beyond the employment relation and workplace in the realm of devolved economic and social governance. Albeit with some marked differences evident between the North East and Wales. Concerning class structural conditions, the North East and Wales are both relatively highly unionised territories, with relatively large numbers of active and powerful affiliates shaping the roles of the TUC federations. Traditional corporatist modes of collective action are being reshaped through the introduction of more decentralised, plural and inclusive forms of governance but these are more firmly legislatively embedded in the relatively more powerful governance arrangements in Wales than the North East at present. Such changes might:
…not necessarily eliminate corporatism as a form of interest
organisation and policy coordination…but points to it assuming a more
fragmented, decentralised and functionally specialised structure (‘local’,
‘sectoral’ or ‘policy area’ corporatism) (Streeck 1992: 79).
Organizational input has become myriad in the context of devolved economic and social governance. Internally, the complex, often finely balanced relations between the sub-national and regional TUCs and TUC nationally as well as
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 51 relations with affiliates have been tested across a widening array of economic and social policy and governance questions. Externally, the federations have had to engage with reshaped and new institutions across a range of scales and respond to an increasing number and frequency of requests for participation in both existing and new policy areas. Organizational process — collective logics — have differed. WTUC appears to have secured relatively more autonomy and resources to engage with its particular situation than the
NTUC in the North East of England which remains under a relatively tighter rein to TUC nationally. Indeed, in a sense the ‘British TUC’ may be acting as an ‘English TUC’ in many ways. WTUC have been able to move their substantive interests further toward their vision of a European model of devolved social partnership within and beyond the workplace than the NTUC.
The role of trade union affiliates and the national, central TUC in concert with the national, central state remain pivotal in shaping, conditioning substantive interest definitions and the scope for their mobilisation.
The reproduction and extension of Streek’s issues of collective organisation and action for labour beyond the workplace into devolved development and governance may be resolved for periods of time through institutional means but fundamentally they appear to be structurally embedded characteristics.
This is not to deny, however, a degree of continued agency for labour:
While in some cases assumption of responsibility by trade unions for
production matters may entail just another version of political
subordination to capitalist interests, in others labor may become the
H:\lucy\papers\DRAFT-2.DOC 52 driving and guiding force of strategic economic adjustment (Streeck
1992: 102; current authors’ emphasis)
The inter-relations between structural imperatives and the social agency of labour and its collective institutions now unfold, in no less determined fashion than in the employment relation or workplace, in the realm of devolved development and governance.
Acknowledgements
Peter O’Brien is now the Regional Policy Officer at the Northern TUC and both
Andy Pike and John Tomaney teach and research at the Centre for Urban and
Regional Development Studies (CURDS), University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.
This paper builds upon research undertaken as part of Peter O’Brien’s ESRC
Studentship (Award No: S00429937051) held by CURDS and the Northern
TUC. Thanks to the participants in the research project and the supervision committee Gill Hale (UNISON), Paul Nowak (NTUC now TUC) and Kevin
Rowan (GMB now NTUC). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the ‘Globalisation’s Challenge to Labour session, RGS-IBG Conference,
London, 3-5 September 2003. The usual disclaimers, as always, apply.
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